Red science

Scientific American: Open Access to Science Under Attack

PubMed Central, published by the NIH—a federal institution—has come under especially intense fire. Their efforts have been dubbed "socialized science," by Rudy Baum, editor in chief of the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Chemical and Engineering News. "Open access, in fact, equates with socialized science," he wrote in a 2004 editorial. "I find it incredible that a Republican administration would institute a policy that will have the long-term effect of shifting responsibility for communicating scientific research and maintaining the archive of science, technology and medical (STM) literature from the private sector to the federal government."

So if you support open-access scientific journals like PLoS or databases like PubMed Central that means you're a Commie? What la. >(

More and more scientists now are part of the generation that grew up with Kazaa and BitTorrent...it's hardly a stretch to guess that open access will gain support over time rather than dying out.